Many organizations are getting on board with the cloud. But the transition can be tough. There are many aspects to consider before going virtual, including security, possible downtime, application migration, and ease of deployment. So where do you start?

Cisco has the answers and expertise that you are seeking. To learn more about how to prep for a cloud transition, consider attending our event “Transforming Your Data Center with Cisco Domain Ten (SM)”. This live webinar will take place on February 27, 2013, at 10:00 AM PST (1:00 PM EST).

At this event, you will learn why the best path to the cloud is a comprehensive approach. The Cisco Domain Ten is a framework built by industry experts that establishes the ten most important domains of the data center. These areas are considered, prioritized, and mapped out so the transformation of your data center is smooth and simple.

In addition, we will provide common use cases and information regarding new approaches to modernization, and how they can affect data center transformation plans. We will wrap up with a Q&A session with Cisco experts.

When I meet with customers and analysts, I’m often asked about Cisco’s Cloud Computing strategy. Many of us have written about it before, including Lew Tucker (Cisco Cloud CTO) and other executive leaders. While we talk about technology innovation, an open ecosystem of partners and driving new ways for customers to solve business problems, there is a key element that is sometimes overlooked. That element is Cisco’s stated direction NOT to compete with our customers (service providers or systems integrators), instead focusing on delivering the critical infrastructure (hardware and software) for building private, public, hybrid and community clouds.

While many of our partners agree with this approach [1][2], some of our competitors do not. Fair enough, everyone needs to figure out their own business models. One of the byproducts of our strategy is that we’re able to take the learnings from certain market segments and quickly apply them to other market segments. We’re not restricted in trying to put together the best possible solutions for our customers. In fact, we’ve created Cloud Builder programs to encourage our Channel Partners and Services Providers to work more closely together to solve customer needs. Read More »

It’s been about a half year since ex-Sun and ex-Salesforce.com guru Lew Tucker joined Cisco as the company’s chief technology officer for cloud computing. He couldn’t have joined at a better time. As Cisco continues to innovate and deliver offerings ranging from Flip cameras and business tablets to core routers and switches, the relationship between these technologies and the cloud continues to broaden. After all, the Internet is really a bunch of networks, and the cloud is based on the Internet and networking, so the more touch points people have to a network and the Internet as a whole, the bigger the picture for cloud. It’s no wonder that the role Lew and Cisco play in ushering in the cloud era is only going to grow the bigger the Internet becomes.

So just how big will the cloud become? According to Lew, much bigger than it is today. “We’re just in the beginning stages,” he told me the other day.

A statement like that requires more explanation. It requires more perspective. And it requires more conversation. Take a step back and you realize that we’re all at a point in time when something big is going to happen, and you feel it, but you just don’t know how exactly everything is going to play out. You just know that it will.

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